


The (Metaphorical) Parent Trap

by hapakitsune



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-21
Updated: 2012-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-02 07:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapakitsune/pseuds/hapakitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dustin needs to work on controlling the metaphors he uses to talk about Mark and Eduardo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The (Metaphorical) Parent Trap

The thing is, Dustin pretty much had no idea what was going on for most of that summer. He knew vaguely that not everything was peachy keen and swell, but he had thought that Mark and Eduardo would pull through. They had to pull through. 

And then everything went to shit in one dramatic blow-up and at the end of it, Dustin was left feeling like a kid who had just found out that his dad was cheating on his mom and leaving her for the other woman. And worse, he kinda felt like he’d been used by his dad to cover up the affair, which meant Dustin also felt like he needed a shower. 

When he voices his interpretation of events to Chris, Chris agrees, “except, let’s be honest, Facebook is their real baby. This is really just a six hundred million dollar custody suit.” 

Which is totally right. It’s kind of like Eduardo and Mark had conceived the baby, and then Mark hadn’t even told Eduardo he was pregnant because he was too busy with the other man, and then when the baby was born, Mark hadn’t even put Eduardo on the birth certificate. Dustin and Chris are kind of like Mark’s children from a previous marriage who had no choice to stick by their douchebag father, even though they liked step-Wardo just fine. Better, even, than step-Sean.

And that metaphor just makes Dustin want to vomit because now he’s picturing a pregnant Mark, which is wrong on _all possible levels_. He tries not to think about it after that because he’s pretty sure he’ll have some sort of mental breakdown if he keeps coming up with ever more disturbing metaphors. Maybe he should stop smoking pot, he thinks, a little fuzzily. 

Sean tries bringing brownies to them, because after the thing with Eduardo and the party, Mark isn’t exactly happy with him, but when Sean attempts to give one to Dustin, Dustin just stares at it suspiciously. Sean is totally the evil stepmother who tries to gain her step-kids’ trust by bribing them with delicious food. (It does smell good; Dustin’s pretty sure Sean had his girl of the day bake them for him.) 

“It’s seriously like he’s trying to gain our approval,” Dustin says, slightly paranoid, to Chris. 

Chris stares at him blankly and then says, “Dustin. What the hell is wrong with you?” Dustin shakes his head and wanders off; he’d forgotten that he hadn’t fully clued Chris into his new metaphor. 

But it’s not like Dustin can do anything about the fact that he (and Facebook and Chris) now comes from a broken home, so he continues on working for Mark and trying not to feel like he’s betraying Eduardo. It wasn’t like Dustin and Eduardo had even been that close – but Dustin had liked Eduardo and he knew that Eduardo had definitely invested a lot of energy and attention into Mark. Dustin could have told him that was a bad bet; Mark is like the worst investment ever. You invest attention and love and you get negative five percent returns. 

\---

Dustin doesn’t pretend that he’s ever been good at reading Mark. The only one who ever could was Eduardo, and clearly even he hadn’t always been able to. So Dustin can’t actually tell whether Mark feels remorse over what happened – if he even knows that he’s _meant_ to feel remorse – until Chris has the brilliant idea for a bunch of the employees to make a video for the It Gets Better Project. 

It’s a good idea. Chris has his own personal reasons for wanting to do it, but it’s also good for their image and they have plenty of gay employees who are excited to participate. Dustin is ultimately impressed by the finished product. The video ends up being really beautiful and moving.

However. Chris tries to get Mark to make a segment. Mark says, “Okay, sure,” because Chris tells him that it’s good PR. Dustin could have told Chris that it was a bad idea. Just how bad, though, he never could have guessed. 

“Okay,” Mark says to the camera, shifting awkwardly in his seat as he stares at the camera with his customarily blank expression. “I’m not really gay. But I, it’s not like I wasn’t teased in school. I’m statistically far more intelligent than the vast majority of people and so obviously they are intimidated by me, which leads to –”

“Mark, stop,” Chris says, pressing the record button on the video camera. “Do you realize that you’re supposed to be talking about how things get better?” 

“I was getting to that,” Mark says. Chris looks over at Dustin, who shrugs helplessly and manfully resists the urge to say, “I told you so.”

“Okay,” Chris says with a small, resigned sigh. “Let’s try again.” 

This time, Mark gets to the point more quickly. “I was teased in high school, like most people are. I was teased for being smart and not really understanding girls like most people, but obviously things get better because now I am richer than all of them. And things are better unless you do something stupid and scare away the one person you really care about –”

“Jesus,” Chris groans, pinching the bridge of his nose, “stop, Mark.” 

It only gets worse. 

“Sometimes you’ll make mistakes and you’ll do stupid things, but it’s not unforgivable,” Mark says, sounding a little defensive. “Life has gotten pretty cool, but mistakes are –”

“Stop,” Chris calls.

“And sometimes you try apologizing, but then they change their phone number and block your email address and they won’t even give you a chance, so who needs him, anyway?” Mark is getting really into it this time, and it all suddenly clicks for Dustin. He turns to stare at Chris, who looks equally wide-eyed. 

It is, Dustin decides, more or less the equivalent of getting your father drunk and hearing him confess that he really misses his mother and regrets marrying the skanky mistress. 

Chris shuts off the camera and says, “Mark. Um. I think you should call Eduardo.” 

Dustin pulls out his phone as Mark asks, “Why would I do that?” 

Chris stares at Mark in utter disbelief and Mark stares back, equally uncomprehending. Dustin dials Eduardo’s number and puts it on speakerphone. “Oh look,” he says as the phone rings loudly in the sudden silence. “I accidentally dialed Wardo’s number. Oops. My bad.” 

Mark stares at him with his creepiest dead-eyed stare, but Dustin has learned to withstand such treatment and stares back with his dopiest expression until the phone picks up. 

Into the silence, Eduardo says, “Dustin? What’s up?” His voice sounds crackly through the phone, but Mark twitches anyway, his spine straightening as if on cue. 

“Hi, Wardo,” Dustin says. “Promise me you won’t hang up.” 

“Okay?” Eduardo says, sounding hesitant. “Why?” 

Dustin gestures frantically at Mark, then finally gives up and punches him in the shoulder when Mark gives no sign of speaking up. “Say something!” Dustin hisses. 

“Hi Wardo,” Mark says, rubbing the spot where Dustin had punched him. 

There is a blank pause on the other end. Finally, after a long, tense minute of crushing silence, Eduardo says, “Hello, Mark.” 

Dustin sets the phone down on Mark’s desk and drags Chris out of the office. Chris says, “Dustin, oh my god,” the moment they’re outside. “What are you doing?” 

“I am pulling a parent trap,” Dustin says. “More or less.” 

The two of them loiter outside Mark’s office like a couple of voyeurs until Mark opens the door two minutes later and says, “He hung up on me.” He returns Dustin’s phone with an expression of distaste.

Dustin snatches his phone out of Mark’s hand and demands, “What did you do?” 

“Why do you assume I did something?” Mark asks defensively. 

“Because it’s always you?” Dusting suggests. Chris snorts in agreement. 

“That’s irrelevant,” Mark says and he shuts the door again. Dustin looks at his phone contemplatively, then calls Eduardo. 

“What the hell, Dustin?” demands Eduardo furiously, once he’s verified that it’s indeed Dustin and not Mark. “Et tu, Brutus?” 

“Look, I just want to come from a non-broken home!” Dustin exclaims. “And I don’t like our new stepmother!”

There’s an ominous silence on the other end. Then Eduardo says in a tone of slow disbelief, “Are you trying to say that I’m the spurned mother?” 

“Yes!” Dustin exclaims. 

“That is disturbing, Dustin,” Eduardo tells him. Chris motions at Dustin to put the phone on speaker, so Dustin presses the button and holds the phone between them. “You wanna know what Mark said to me?”

“Yes,” says Dustin. 

“No,” says Chris. 

“Ignore Chris,” Dustin says. “Tell me so I can yell at him.” 

“He told me I was overreacting,” Eduardo says in a dangerous voice. “Tell me, is it overreacting to be angry that my best friend screwed me out of our company?”

“Well,” Chris says, “you didn’t have to break the computer.” 

“Shut up, Chris,” snaps Dustin, narrowing his eyes. He turns back to the phone and says comfortingly, “No, it isn’t overreacting.” 

“Oh my god, never mind,” Chris says. “I am going to let you two gossip and bitch to each other while I go grab that videotape and burn it before anyone can see it.”

“No!” Dustin practically shouts just as Eduardo says, “Videotape?” 

“Nothing,” Dustin says hurriedly. “I’ll talk to you later, Wardo,” and he hangs up. “Chris,” he says, turning. “I have a brilliant idea.”

Chris eyes him with extreme skepticism and says, “Really.” 

“Honestly, Chris, you have so little faith in me,” Dustin says, clapping a hand to his chest. “What have I ever done to make you skeptical of my ideas?”

“Do you remember the time we ended up stranded in Ithaca during a blizzard?” Chris crosses his arms and glares. “How about the time you thought it would be good to go fountain-hopping at Stanford?” 

“It’s a thing, I swear it is,” Dustin says. It totally is; the internet had told him so.

“Right,” Chris snorts. “For students, maybe. For grown-ass men in tighty-whities? Not so much.”

“Okay, well aside from those two _minor_ incidents,” Dustin says. “And this is actually a good idea.”

“I’ll believe it when I hear it,” Chris says stubbornly.

“We need to send Eduardo those video files,” Dustin says bluntly. “So at least he knows that Mark is sorry in his own weird Mark way.”

Chris looks at Dustin for a long moment, then says, “Actually, that’s not half-bad.” 

“Thank you.” Dustin affects a little bow. “I aim for mediocrity.” 

\---

Dustin attaches the video files to an email and sends it to Eduardo with the subject line, _please actually watch these_. 

He gets a reply email about three hours later. It consists of three words: _What the fuck?_

“Man, if only I knew,” Dustin mutters to the screen of his computer. He types, _Why don’t you ask Mark?_

Which is apparently why Eduardo shows up two days later, looking disgruntled and tired from what was probably a very long flight. He goes into Mark’s office, blowing past Mark’s assistant (who had more or less been forced on Mark at gunpoint) as well as Dustin and Chris and a very irritated Sean. 

“What is he doing here?” demands Sean, looking jealous. Dustin valiantly resists the urge to say something rude and instead does his best blank face. He’s gotten very good at that. 

He decides to go get them beer – Mark’s assistant is looking disgruntled and annoyed – and grabs two bottles from the mini-fridge under his desk before striding into Mark’s office, crowing, “What’s up, bitches!” 

Eduardo looks up and glares at him so hard that Dustin half-expects to drop dead. “Dustin,” he hisses dangerously. “What are you doing.” It’s a mark of how frustrated Eduardo is that he doesn’t even pretend that it’s a question. 

“Um,” Dustin says and he holds out the beers as a peace offering. “I’ll go.” 

“You don’t have to, Wardo isn’t saying anything you can’t hear,” Mark says with his trademark brutal honesty.

“Jesus, Mark!” Eduardo shouts and Dustin practically runs out of the office after setting the beers down on Mark’s desk. Chris stares at him with an expression that, disturbingly enough, reminds Dustin quite vividly of how his mother stares at him when he’s done something wrong. 

Sean is still sulking at the desk that is nominally his, so Dustin goes back to his desk and tries to start working on checking over the code that the other employees have written, but he keeps wondering what Mark and Eduardo are talking about. With the door shut, the room is close to soundproofed, but Dustin can hear what he thinks is the faint sound of Eduardo’s voice, raised in a shout. 

A noise that suspiciously resembles a crash emanates from the office. Dustin jumps to his feet and looks over at Chris, who seems to have heard the same sound. They approach the door together – the blinds on the glass walls are drawn shut – and Chris bites the bullet by knocking and asking, “Mark? Eduardo? Is everything all right?” 

There’s a brief pause, and then Eduardo says in a slightly high-pitched voice, “Everything is fine! Go away.”

“Well, that’s kind,” mutters Dustin. Chris rolls his eyes and curls his arm around Dustin’s bicep. 

“Come on, you idiot,” Chris says and he drags Dustin away. “Obviously they don’t want us interrupting.” 

“What could they possibly be –” A thought occurs to Dustin and he nearly wrenches his shoulder out of its socket as he yanks his arm out of Chris’s grip. “Chris. Mark and Eduardo.” 

Chris stares at him, waiting for him to finish his thought, but Dustin is too busy running through everything he had seen and heard. “What about them?” prompts Chris, a little impatiently. 

“Oh my god,” breathes Dustin, half-delighted and half-terrified. “I was totally spot on with those metaphors. Sean really _is_ the other woman!”

“Hey!” Sean protests. He really has, like, freaky bat ears or something, Dustin should remember that in the future. “I am not the other woman!”

“But you totally are!” Dustin exclaims, waving his arms and ignoring all the weird looks he’s getting from the other employees. “I can’t believe I never saw how true it was before! No wonder Eduardo got so mad, Mark was so infatuated with you he neglected his wife!” 

“Wait, Eduardo is Mark’s wife now?” Chris asks. 

“Well, obviously,” Dustin says impatiently. “Who else would it be?” 

Chris has a look on his face that indicates that he more or less agrees with this sentiment, but that he’s also a little worried for Dustin’s state of mind. “Right,” he says. “Okay.”

“I just want to have a happy family again,” Dustin says morosely. He has the feeling that he has become a little overinvested in his own metaphor, but the point still stands. He knows Eduardo doesn’t judge them for staying with Mark, but he always feels vaguely guilty and nauseated after getting off the phone with him. It’s like he can feel Eduardo’s disappointment through the phone. He gets enough of that when he calls home (his mom always wants to know if he’s met a nice Jewish girl yet).

Chris rolls his eyes, but pat Dustin’s shoulder in an expression of at least fabricated sympathy. Dustin appreciates it. 

\---

Mark and Eduardo clearly think they’re being subtle, but they are utterly failing at it. And Dustin should know. He is the king of unsubtle. 

“They’re totally doing it,” he tells Chris happily after the third time Eduardo shows up more or less unannounced. Mark has canceled all his appointments for the day and his assistant is taking out her frustration on her poor, innocent keyboard. 

"You realize that, in light of your parental metaphor, your pleasure over this is very disturbing and a little Freudian,” Chris says. 

“Just because you took Psych 101,” mutters Dustin.

The thing is, though, Dustin is pretty sure the relationship isn’t healthy. Eduardo flies in every so often, Mark drops everything, they presumably fuck like horny rabbits for however long Eduardo is in town, and then Eduardo leaves. Mark is always a little bit bitchier right after Eduardo has left. 

Dustin wants romance. He wants a summer wedding with Eduardo in white and Mark in formal hoodie wear. Well, maybe not that, but he wants them to stop being such pussies about it and just admit that they have squishy love feelings for each other. Or for Mark to admit he has feelings period. 

So the next time Eduardo’s in town, Dustin accosts him before he can make it into Mark’s office and says, “Wardo. Can we talk?”

Eduardo’s mouth is set in a bitter line, and he stares at Dustin for a moment before nodding curtly. Dustin beckons Eduardo into the conference room – which probably isn’t the best idea, given Eduardo’s history with the conference room, but oh well – and shuts the door behind them. He can see the employees sneaking looks at them –a lot of them weren’t around for Eduardo-gate, but they’ve all heard about it – but he studiously ignores them in favor of staring Eduardo down. 

“So,” Dustin says. “Let’s just acknowledge the fact that I know you and Mark are totally doing it and move on, okay?” 

Eduardo’s mouth tightens even further for a moment, and then he nods curtly. “Fine.” 

“Great, okay.” Dustin leans his hands onto the table and eyeballs Eduardo. “Can we also not pretend that you’re not in love with him?” 

Eduardo opens his mouth and Dustin shakes his finger. “No, I know, Eduardo. You’re not as subtle as you like to think.” 

“Okay, whatever,” Eduardo says after a pause. “What is your point?”

“My point is that this bullshit thing you’re doing with Mark needs to either end or change.” Dustin runs a hand through his hair, wondering how to express himself. “Look, we both know that you were good for Mark. Everyone knows that. You kept him from being a total asshole and you made him sort of happy.” 

“Dustin, nothing makes Mark happy except pissing people off,” says Eduardo.

“Which is why for like a week after you leave, Mark does nothing but be bitchy to everyone. Because he’s unhappy. Also, you’re wrong. You make him happy.” 

“What do you want me to do? Marry him?” Eduardo sounds disappointingly incredulous about the idea, though Dustin thinks it has real potential.

“Ideally yes.” Dustin watches Eduardo splutter for a few moments before taking pity on him and saying, “Okay, maybe not that, but you should at least, I don’t know, make sure he knows you’re not leaving again.” 

“I didn’t leave the first time, he left me!”

“And then you left him. See it from Mark’s perspective, Wardo! You know he doesn’t see things like a normal person.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Eduardo admits. He sighs and leans back against the wall of the conference room. “Does everyone know about us?” 

“I’ve been telling people that the two of you are hammering out some new idea that you had,” Dustin says, because he is nothing if not a good friend. “I don’t think most people would suspect.” 

Eduardo doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then he says, “I still don’t know what you want from me.” 

“I want you to be happy and I want Mark to be happy. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.” Dustin waits, but no protests seem forthcoming. “Okay, so. Something to keep in mind.” 

Eduardo nods and leaves the room, hands shoved into his pockets. Dustin watches him go and mutters, “Fly, little Wardo, fly.”

\---

“So,” Dustin says to Chris when they go out to grab dinner at the Cheesecake Factory later that day. “Maybe it’s not ideal, but I think they might actually be talking now rather than just having sex.”

“Dustin, one of these days you’re going to have to accept the fact that you’re not actually a fairy godmother,” Chris says. “But I will admit that I am impressed, albeit slightly disturbed by your fixation on their sex life.” 

Dustin lifts his beer and says, “I will take that as a win.”


End file.
